Barbara Friesen Retires

Barbara has been an integral part of Rainier’s tent division since 2012, when the company acquired the Portland-based SEC Group. She met Spencer Etzel, founder of the SEC Group, in the early 1990s, when the bank where she worked sponsored a hot air balloon event and he was there as a Balloonmeister.

She and her husband were running a marketing company called TEAM Inc. (for Training, Events, Advertising, and Marketing), creating industry specific tradeshows, small business advertising programs, and OSHA safety compliance confined space training. She began providing sales support to Etzel’s company and eventually became a full time employee, fully immersed in the special events industry.

In her time at Rainier, she was a champion for the implementation of the ERP management system, a valued representative at tradeshows, and her dedication to customer satisfaction made her a respected member of the team. Her colleagues and clients in the industry will miss her great, “get it done” attitude.